


Our Allies

by Kithas



Series: Pokémon Reborn Fanfic Series [3]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Reborn
Genre: Absent Characters, Acceptance, Character Development, Desert, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Healing, In her own pokemon journey, Minor Character Death, Original Pokemon Character - Freeform, Pokemon, Pokemon Reborn - Freeform, Post-Canon, Rebon Region, Recovery, She's probably out there, Tourmaline Desert, Wild Pokemon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24171169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kithas/pseuds/Kithas
Summary: Driven by its search for power in the back alleys of Reborn City, Espurr leaves the walls behind with a friend, in search for an ally who could turn things around for both of them. But they're not the only ones who are out there, in the middle of nowhere, searching for someone in a place full of memories and fallen fantasies.
Relationships: Amaria Fiore/Titania Andersen, Hardy Andersen/Aya LaRue
Series: Pokémon Reborn Fanfic Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1376917
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Our Allies

The train rode smoothly between the desert dunes. It connected the Reborn Region with a number of faraway destinies, like the Orre region or the Grey Havens, which allowed travel from landlocked Reborn Region to places like Aevium, Hoenn or Sinnoh. It was a long trip, and most travelers used to spend it sleeping, but the first stop was not that far out of Reborn. The brakes screeched due to the sand, and all the passengers that were still awake looked with curiosity to the small, almost nonexistant, stop right in the middle of nowhere. It was exactly right in the middle of nowhere, and it was actually almost unexistant, the sand looking like it wanted to swallow the little brick platform, and the palm tree, a disguised exeggutor looking to ambush smaller pokemon that came looking for shadow. And that was exactly what would have happened with that cat-like pokemon who stepped down the train, looking around. The Espurr looked to his shadow and around, but the exeggutor couldn't have its chance, as a trainer exited the train after him.  
"Huh..." the green-haired woman looked around, seemingly puzzled. "What... Rini? Are you here? We were on the middle of..." Julia raised an eyebrow. Nothing but sand all around. "I think this time I overdid that coffee... Why the hell am I out in Tourmaline?? Hey, little one? Could you tell me?" The little espurr did actually know what had brought Julia to the desert, as it was himself who did it. It was easy, after breaking out of jail, to find a mind so easily manipulated by his psychic powers. It was usually due to the people he controlled being just dumb, but in this case, Julia had simply so little cares in the world that not even being used as a safe pass out of the city would bother her. Actually, as soon as she located the city walls in the distance, Reborn's electric-type leader started walking, not before noticing how the little pokemon had made himself scarce around the dunes.

  
It was usually not a good idea for such a small pokemon like Espurr to be alone out there. Heliolisks wanting to have a munch, curious Dugtrios who looked around from underneath, or some skarmory up in the sky, waiting for it to give in to thirst or exhaustion. The desert is big, and dangerous, and out there, everything wants to hunt you. But it was a cacturne the first to give it a try. It happened around an hour after the espurr had left the train stop, when the sun was starting to go down. The cacti around the desert seemed to have changed positions too many times, and it was obvious something was going to happen. But the little pokemon still went his way, like he hadn't noticed at all. Until, suddenly, he could not ignore it any longer. One of such cacti grew arms, and eyes, and began smiling at him. Before he knew it, another three cacturne had surrounded him, and all of them looked like they would have a good time. Dark-types usually do, more when their victim is a puny psychic type. But it was their mistake. When the first one went for the Espurr, it noticed something was not right. It noticed Espurr's shadow was smiling.   
The Sludge Wave knocked two of the cacturne out of their feet, sending a few metres away, and when the gengar materialized from the Espurr's shadow, the other two predators hissed and showed their spikes, but they could smell the poison that had knocked out the other two pokemon in one hit, and decided it wasn't worth it. "Thank you", Espurr said. "Those guys were getting uncomfortably close".  
"You're welcome" Gengar smiled at him. "You helped me out of that city unnoticed. Now, we're even". Espurr nodded, even though he knew they weren't. It was Gengar, one of his previous allies, the one who had broken him out of jail. But Gengar, well, she was the one looking for Espurr, and besides, they were together in this. The were together against that monster, that evil Zoroark who, after taunting Espurr in his own cell, had found Gengar while she took shelter in an alleyway and proceeded to beat the shit out of her, just because, for the kicks of it. The big players in Reborn City's pokemon underworld would not accept them just for being hice. They had to battle their way to glory. And Gengar, well, she knew just the right guy.  
"And you say he's just like you?" Espurr asked, while they,followed the railway, north of there. A strange and shapeless mound appeared in the horizon. "I guess he's not going to be of much help, then. That Zoroark is just too strong. And too clever. You won't win just with numbers".  
"He is like me". Gengar said. "But he's not at all. We are, how to say it... We complement each other. You'll see, you'll see"  
"I hope I do". The couple started getting near to the train mess, near the sandstorm. The shapeless hill was just a little bit away, still. "But I'm not sure why should we go that far away, if you have already talked with him... Is he a hermit, or something?"  
"Well, you see, my friend, he... Is not from around here" Gengar smiled. Espurr didn't like that mytery at all, but he allowed it. Gengar seemed to be having fun, and, if he felt like it, he could always take it from her mind. She was a poison-type, after all.   
But it wasn't easy reaching their destination. The desert was big, and full of horrors.Those abandoned trains kept them entertained for a long time. They thought when night fell, most pokemon would fall asleep, and t would be easier for a Ghost-type like Gengar to make her way, but one of the trains suddenly moved, and they realized they had made a mistake: It wasn't just a train graveyard: It was a sprawling nest of Steelix. The two of them spent half the night inside a ruined train wagon, feet away from a sleeping Steelix head, knowing it wouldn't do them any favors for the giant pokemon to find two intruders around its eggs. Finally, after many hours of sneaking carefully, inches at a time, they managed to scurry to the next wagon, and from there, they felt free again to go on their journey under the light of the full moon.  
The didn't talk much at all. They hadn't gotten there to find themselves or in vacation, just to find an ally to help them back at home, and they were pokemon, after all, not some measly human trainers who needed desperately social relations to survive. But, even if they didn't say it, they were glad not to be alone when they found the scrapyard plaza. It had previously been inhabited, by people who wanted to keep it under the radar or to disappear from the city, and they had abandoned that settlement as soon as they found a most suitable place, with clean water to spare. But it was still there. That human footprint, that characteristic smell in the air. Old and ruined chairs, half-buried flowerpots, and rusty train wagons full of machinery left behind. The ghost of a human settlement, not long after it was abandoned.   
The two pokemon avoided the snoring hippowdon that had made its nest there. They weren't at their destination. Not yet. What Gengar was looking for was a little bit farther, but they could already see it: The remains of a huge building, fallen in the distance. They traveled around a bit, inside the wagons, around the maze that had was the end of a lot of unfortunate gym challengers. But they did not get lost, and it hadn't been long before they got out, not to the sand and the desert again, but to a fairy tale forest. Or, at least, what was supposed to look like one.

The trees that once shone under the moonlight were pale and grey, eerie and almost crumbling, and the magic stairway that once was directed to heavens had broken down and buried itself in the fallen leaves of the grey forest, together with the once floating boulders. The fairy tale had died long ago. The illusions, the scenery, the huge castle laid down, fallen, broken, and in ruins.  
"No..." Gengar seemed in distress. "It was supposed to be up there. I... I don't recall it being like this. It was supposed to be magic..."  
"What? I-I don't get it" Espurr advanced, wading through the fallen leaves. "Have you been here before?"  
"No, but he showed me. He told me about this magic place, this shining lake. He told me..."  
"Wait" Espurr cut her. "Look, is that a..?"  
"You're right" Gengar answered, getting near the body. It was a human body. A young human, red-haired, appeared to be laid into the ground.   
"You think he's already...?" Espurr didn't have time to ask. Because the screech of a Mandibuzz near them quieted both.   
"Oh, thank you, kiddos..." It chirped, as if it were smiling, be it a human. "After all this time following you, looking for you to fall to hunger..." And they were hungry. But Gengar had convinced Espurr they would find food. In retrospect, that was the place they were supposed to find it, wasn't it? Heh. "But I'll admit it", the Mandibuzz continued. "A human is a lot more nutritious than you guys". They both stepped down. They weren't to fight a big and menacing Dark-type for a trophy they weren't even thinking of enjoying themselves, anyways. Not wort the risk. They fell back, to the nearest tree, while the Mandibuzz cackled and cawed, and looked how it prepared itself for the meal. Luckily for the fallen human, it didn't have a chance to peck it.  
"Deliverance!" The female voice preceded that white beam of light that crossed the forest clearing, striking down the vulture pokemon, and a woman entered their field of sight, followed by a Lapras and a Starmie, who gave light to the scene. It was a light neither of them needed, as both Espurr and Gengar were noturnal pokemon anyways, but it allowed them to recognize the blue-haired woman. Without saying anything, both of them agreed to remain hidden for the time being. "Oh, shit", the woman said. "Is he...?" The Starmie spinned around, with its light pulsating, and negated. "Thanks, Twinkle. Well.." She sighed, and pressed her hands together. "I'm sorry for this, Mr. Anderson, but we would have agreed it was necessary. One more time, Deliverance". Deliverance the Lapras let out a little amused cry, and put herself to work.   
They didn't need much water to wake the sleeping man, with only Gengar muttering "Oh, those dreams" under her breath, and soon enough, Hardy woke up all of a sudden.

"Amy! What... What are you doing here? What happened?"  
"I saved your ass. Again" Amaria said, sternly, sitting back and letting a silent sigh out after confirming Hardy was okay. "You had your friends worried, back in the city. I heard even Avani was concerned. What were you doing here, alone like that?"  
"I..." Hardy sat himself up, rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep, again, but he hadn't had any rest. He was tired. And hungry. And thirsty. Well, not anymore, thanks to Amy, but... "You already know what am I doing here, Amy". He looked back, at the fallen stairs, at the ruined castle, sideways in the middle of that eternally dying forest. "I won't give in, even if the whole world does. I didn't abandon Aya, and I won't abandon her. You should know better than anybody". It wasn't their first argument about that.   
"But nobody's asking you to follow up on it.You don't have to keep beating yourself, driving yourself to exhaustion, just because you can't let go. You have to do what I did, Hardy. You have to let her go, like she wanted".  
"You wouldn't understand, Amy". He passed his hand through his hair. Nobody understood. They just looked at her and saw her iron front. Stone. Cold. Alone. "She's my sister".  
"I wouldn't understand?" Amy smiled, a bitter smile. "What about it? That you're would die for her? I did. But it didn't give me back Tania. The only one who could do that, was Tania herself. And now, she left for good. You have to accept i, Hardy. You have to stop living in the past, like that castle". It happened one day, like that kind of things. They woke up, a lot of tasks to do, and she just disappeared. Departed Reborn Grand Station to never come back, or maybe she went just north of the Grand Gates, they didn't know for sure. But the point is, she never looked back. She never wanted them to follow. She did make herself clear on that.

"And you, all of you, act like it was nothing. Like everything is okay with her decision". Hardy stood up, he had seen enough suffering around him, he hadn't let himself stand aside, he wasn't going to start now. Aya was out of the region for work, and her brother was busy learning to be the manager of the renovated Byxbysion Ward, every had their own gig going on. And he... Hardy knew he was missing something. There was an empty lot there. One he usually didn't even bother to talk to. Titania and him were not in good terms usually, but she... She was there, and he also did, and if something horrible happened, if some mad woman tried to reshape reality of something like that, they could count on each other to be there. He did, at least. She was his sister. And he could not just let it go. "I know she was not easy to love, but Amy, you did. How could you just let her leave like that?"  
"I did, for that very reason" She had stood up to, and arched her brows. "I did love Tania so much it was painful to me, dangerous even. I still love her. But there is one thing that I learned in all those years: I can't force her to do the same". Amaria had come to terms with the fact that Titania did love her back, actually. It was love what got her to fake an entre relationship just to save her, just to see her happy. It was love to fall behind her down a roaring waterfall, to... Fight all of Team Meteor almost bare handed, just to ensure her safety. It may had been only platonically, but she did love her. And to understand that was the most any would get from the former Steel-type leader, was a big step in her recovery. She put her hands over Hardy's shoulders. "Someone, way younger than me, but wiser than me too, said to me a long time ago, that loving someone meant wanting them to be happy. To avoid any suffering. You and me both know, Tania felt herself trapped inside the city. Like a princess in her tower, in a fairy tale. I know I'm not exactly a prince charming myself, but..."  
"...But you had to let her go". Hardy finished for her. "Wow. I..." he blinked, perplexed. "I guess I never thought I would be getting that from you, of all people. Are you sure you're not, I don't know, Anna? Or Cain, maybe?"  
"Have your fun." Amaria conceded. "Truth is, I have my days. Some of them, I have to struggle just to show a fake smile to the others, but, you know, medication helps. And having to rescue my friend from his own stubbornness also helps." She were nowhere close as good as she made him know. She still suffered, and it was not easy to keep going, sometimes. But she knew she had to go on, just like that. She had to live, even if it was while waiting until Titania came back, to show her how she had advanced. Even if she was just keeping herself afloat, it was enough. She wouldn't let anybody sink with her again. And so, he took one of the ratiosn inside her backpack, and gave it to Hardy, who started eating it while going back. To his friends. To his people.

Espurr and Gengar, anyways, had not turned back. They did wait for the conversation to unravel out of curiosity, but it was just too little to pick their interest: Love, hate, people who left... They were just so alien to the pokemon, that they just kept searching for that place, that shining lake, from where Gengar ensured Espurr once again that she could summon their new ally. They trekked around the ruins, with the Gengar navigating easily around in the air, levitating, searching for any signs of any magic lake, while Espurr went up and down giant boulders and pieces of the ruined castle. A gym leader had lived there, long ago, building this place as an arena to test challengers into her own fabricated world, only to, when she just gave up the lie, destroy it all. The Fairy-Type pokemon had all fled, and the magic was slowly draining up too. But it was not over.  
"Gengar!" Espurr called his friend, who floated down to him. "I think I got it. You said you needed a shining lake, did you? Look". The ghost followed Espurr's eyes, only to find herself looking at a shining through the boulders. And she just... She just let out a cackle. Of course. "A Shining lake. Don't make me laugh", Gengar said. It was so stupid, yet so obvious... There was no magic in that lake that made it shine. It was only the full moon's reflection, who, getting near the horizon as it did, gave the "lake", a small pond between the ruins, a shimmer. But, but it was so obvious, at the same time. Excited by their discovery, Gengar took Espurr without warning, and, giving no ear to his complaints, took him just before the pond. The moonlight, he said he liked it. He bathed in it. And, the place Gengar had met him first, was in the other side of the mirror. "And now, dear friend", she said, theatrically, while floating down over the lake ."I present you, our salvation"  
"Gosh, I wouldn't think of me as your salvation", the Gengar in the reflection said. "I just said I was tympathetic to your plea. I will help you to defeat that evil tyrant pokemon you told me about, but make no mistake..." When the "gengar" from the reflection crossed the way between the two realities, it got cleared out of its purple, which became pink, and its spiky hair curled in its front. "I am not participating in any turf ward with gangs involved"  
"Oh, I'm sure you won't, pink" Gengar, the actual Gengar, smiled to the Clefable, while floating down to his level. "But be sure to bath in all this moonlight. We don't know how much of it you will need to blast out".

Far from them, very far away, almost to the other side of the desert, Julia suddenly woke up after her nap near a defeated exeggutor. "Oh! I do remember what was I supposed to be doing!" she snapped her fingers. "I was about to go get Amy and Tania's bro in case they got lost! Oh man, how bad have I forgotten... Definetly I have to let coffee go for now" She sighed, while looking at the direction Amaria and Hardy would be coming from in a few hours. "I wonder if those Espurr and Gengar will be okay, tho..."


End file.
